June in review

July! I can’t quite believe that it’s July already, for me the year is speeding along like a runaway train, perhaps for others it’s dragging. While others are starting to venture out into the world again, I am still shielding – till August. I am doing some work from home too. The danger of course that this has all started to feel quite normal.

June was the first month since lockdown – and possibly this year when I feel as if I have started to read a little more. I’m about fifty pages shy of having read twelve books in June – two of them secreted away on my kindle. I have also read a little more widely and diversely this month, with a couple of non-fiction (although they weren’t what I think of as proper non-fiction) and a couple of novels in translation and some new fiction.

I began June with A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen, a lovely first edition I bought with birthday money from ebay – it was quite reasonable and in very good condition. It was also the last of her novels I had to read. It is a novel of great subtlety, focussing on the lives of a group of people in a large house in Ireland.

Following a conversation with Karen from Kaggsy’s bookish ramblings during our weekly lockdown Zoom call I picked up The Hours Before Dawn by Celia Fremlin. I gulped it down, I thoroughly enjoyed the subtlety of this one, the fact it wasn’t too heavy on the action, is why I especially liked it. Fremlin is an excellent writer of suspense fiction, in which she weaves a psychological mystery around a domestic setting.

Journal by Katherine Mansfield was the first of those non-fiction books I read. I have struggled more than usual to read non-fiction – so this seemed a good one to try, as journals, biography, memoirs are more narrative driven than other kinds of non-fiction. I did enjoy this book – perhaps my review made it sound like I didn’t – but I was definitely not in the right mood after all – and that spoiled my experience of it. Katherine Mansfield remains a big favourite with me though. There are many beautiful moments throughout however, and the reader does get a real sense of who Katherine Mansfield was.

Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley is a late Victorian novel that is satisfyingly many things at once. A novel of what was then termed ‘the New Woman’ while also having something of the sensation novel about it. It is a novel that satirises the smug, complacency of the middle classes and some aspects of the clergy – demonstrating how women needed independence. Here is a story of a close female friendship, romance, adultery, a suicide pact and the search for fulfilment. It zips along at a marvellous pace, becoming hard to put down. 

There has been a lot of talk on social media about The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet (which I read on kindle.) Very recently published I think it deserves all the attention it is getting. The Vanishing Half is a brilliantly compelling read – it’s a story of race, of colour, exploring the American history of ‘passing.’ It is also a story of belonging – of finding your place in the world.

Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi is the first book in translation I had read for about three months. Winner of the Man Booker International prize 2019, it is a novel of Omani society through the lives, loves and losses of one family. It has really whetted my appetite for more in translation, and since reading it I have pulled two more books in translation from the shelves.

Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols is technically non-fiction but as I said not what I think of proper non-fiction. This is the first book in Beverley Nichols’ second garden trilogy. After the Second World War Beverley Nichols decided he wished to buy a large country house with extensive gardens. Early in the book Nichols finds his perfect house, a large Georgian house in five acres of grounds. It is delightful and thoroughly entertaining.

Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall had me going off and researching a little about the author – who I knew nothing about. I definitely now want to read more by her. It is a coming of age story; Selina Boyce is the younger daughter of Barbadian immigrants living in Brooklyn, New York during the Depression and Second World War. It is very evocative of a time and place and of a community. Marshall shows us with some poignancy what it was to grow up black and female. 

In the mood for some short stories, and with plenty to choose from I picked up Cocktail Bar by Norah Hoult which I first saw reviewed by Cathy at 746 books during read Ireland month. It is a wonderful collection, which I will review soon. I discovered, what a prolific writer Norah Hoult was, and I am pleased that New Island books have re-issued this collection and one of Hoult’s novels. Many of you will be familiar with her novel There Were No Windows published by Persephone books.

My second novel in translation read in June was After the Death of Ellen Keldberg by Eddie Thomas Petersen published by Handheld Press. A modern Danish novel which I must say I enjoyed a lot – it is set in Skagen a seaside fishing town in winter. Not wanting to pre-empt my review too much but I found it quirky, atmospheric and very compelling.

Dean street press books do make for great weekend reading I find. Not at Home by Doris Langley Moore (another kindle read) was no exception. A novel of domestic disharmony set just after the end of WW2 – there is a character I loathed so much – but quite enjoyed loathing and I longed to see what would happen to her.

At the time of writing I am close to the end of The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara is an Argentinian novel shortlisted for this year’s International Booker prize, that I am reading for Spanishlit month (which seems to be July and part of August).

Gosh this post is already rather long – so I will just say that my plans for July include at least one more book for Spanishlit month and my book group read of Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles. Other than that, I shall see where my mood takes me.

Happy reading everyone – tell me what brilliant things did you read in June?